"Now see how different the matter is with dinnerat night. After breakfast you wash and put away the dishes from the night before with the breakfast dishes; then you do up the housework and examine the refrigerator. As you have only a light meal to get for noon, you will ordinarily find something there which you can have; or you can decide to get something simple and prepare it just before lunch. Next you go down-town and market in a leisurely manner, because you are not in a desperate rush to get the things home. When you return you prepare the dinner; put the soup-meat and bones in the fireless stove to cook, or make a milk soup to reheat; make the dessert and set it away; stir up salad-dressing; bake a cake, or do any such light cooking. When the grocery boy comes and the butcher's boy, you prepare the vegetables for dinner and do whatever you have to to the meat; perhaps put it in the fireless stove, if it is a stew, or chop it if it is to be any sort of mince.
"Then you have luncheon; scrambled eggs, or devilled sardines, or any light dish, with tea. Afterwards you wash and put away these dishes, and then your afternoon is before you; it cannot be later than two o'clock at the worst. You sew, or go out, or rest in any way you like, and at five or half-past, at the earliest, you put the final touches to the dinner and lay the table. Afterwards, as I have said, you pile the dishes in the dish-pan in a nice, tidy way, andyour day's work is done. That seems to me the easiest sort of housekeeping. However, I don't mean to dogmatize. This is merely my own idea, and if you don't agree with me, but later on you can manage better some other way, do so, and accept my blessing."
"Certainly I shall. But as I now see the case, I shall do just as you do and continue to have dinner at night to the end of the chapter. You might have added to your other reasons for having it than the one we were taught at school, that it is most hygienic to have the heavy meal when work is over."
"That is true; I did not think of it, but there is that in its favor as well as the ease and comfort of it. But now to go on to other things about dinners."
"Why do you begin with dinners? I should think you would take up breakfast first and then luncheons."
"For one thing, dinner is the principal meal of the day and therefore the most important; for another, as the two lighter meals are largely made up of left-overs from dinner, you must begin with that or you will not have anything for the other two."
"Oh, yes, of course. Go on, then, with the lesson."
"The first rule for dinners is this: Always have your food in courses. You would be surprised to find that plenty of poor people—poor but respectable, like ourselves—would dispute this, but I assure you they would. They have an idea that with a smallincome you should have one large, substantial course of meat and vegetables, with perhaps a solid pudding or pie to follow, and eliminate all frills and fashions of service. To them the plan of a three-course dinner every day is a wild vagary, not to be considered by people living on a little; but really it is the truest economy. Look at the French; I have to point to them over and over, even if you tire of hearing about them. They can make a tiny bit of money go farther than an American would dream possible, and they always have their dinners in courses. You may be perfectly positive that there is good, solid reason back of that fact, for unless they saved money by it they would not do so.
"You will see how it is if you think a moment, too. If you give a hungry family, or even a lone hungry man, a plate of strong, substantial soup, the edge of his appetite is blunted, and when the meat course appears, instead of demanding two helpings, one will probably suffice. Now as meat is your most expensive item of housekeeping, you can easily see what an advantage that is. Soups are very wholesome, and, if you will kindly overlook the slang, decidedly 'filling at the price.' You will save materially, your family will have stronger digestions and better health, and no one will suspect your economic motive.
"Then after the soup, of course you have your substantial course; and here comes in my second rule: Remember that you cannot have any expensive meats. Give up all your preconceived ideas of what is 'proper' for dinner. You cannot have the proper thing; instead you must have the cheap thing. Roasts, steaks, and chickens are not for you. In their place you must have all sorts of queer things, which you would naturally call luncheon or supper dishes. It seems strange and unpleasant, doesn't it? But that is the way it has to be if you are to be a good manager. However, here is a grain of comfort for you: men seldom pay much attention to details; to them, meat is meat, and if it is good and there is plenty of it, it does not much matter from what part of the animal it is cut nor how much it costs a pound. So a Hamburg steak or a stew or a meat pie is all right, provided only that it is appetizing and nourishing. And as I said, the costly things you simply cannot have."
"Do you really mean we are never to have a roast?"
"Oh, once in awhile you may have one, for Sunday dinner or for company; but for steady diet you are to have simpler things. And here comes in my third rule, no less important than the other two: Never use up the meat from one day's dinner for breakfast or luncheon, but always save it for dinner the second day. That seems absurd and impossible,I know, for sometimes there is nothing worth mentioning left over; but listen:
"Suppose you get three pounds of lamb stew one day, which is too much for a single meal; you cook it all, take out the large bones and put them over for soup, and serve half the meat for dinner. The second night you have the other half in a meat pie, with any gravy you do not need you put in the stock-pot. Now, incidentally, let me say that sometimes lamb is expensive, so do not rush madly off when you market and invest largely in it because I said it was cheap. Always watch the price and buy only when things are low in price.
"You see this is the way I plan: I make a point of buying enough meat for two dinners at one time, because one large purchase costs less and goes farther than two smaller ones. You can buy a pound and a half of chopped beef and make two meals of it for less than you can buy one pound one day and a second pound the next, and that is what you would do, practically, if you bought each day."
"But I am sure Fred would not like Hamburg steak twice running, Mary."
"He need not have it. I buy the two days' supply at once, say the steak on Monday; I serve half that night in one fashion; Tuesday night I have something quite different, perhaps veal; Wednesday night wehave the rest of the steak in another way from the way we had it Monday night, and Thursday night we finish up the veal, also in a different way from the Tuesday night style. That gives variety, and a man cannot keep count of these things in spite of his alleged mathematical mind, so it works perfectly."
"Suppose you don't get enough for two nights, or the man eats more than you expected he would and you are short, what do you do then?"
"I manage, my dear. If I have a good deal of meat left over from the first day's dinner I have perhaps English rissoles; or I have a nice dish of baked hash; or a cottage loaf; or I have a meat pie.
"If I run short and have only a little meat, as you suggest, I have a soufflé, which takes only a cup of chopped meat for a good-sized dishful. I'll give you the rule for that. Or, I have croquettes; they are one of the queer dishes apparently out of place at dinner, but they are good and make a change, and when you have only a little meat they are invaluable. You see what I mean. Plan to get enough meat for two dinners at once, and if you are short on the second night, have a little dish of left-overs, disguised."
"But do you think croquettes would be enough dinner for a hungry man? I have an idea they would be considered as a sort of appetizer only."
"Of course they would not be enough; what an idea! You have forgotten soup. Always have a course of distinctly heavy soup when you are to have a light meal, and vice versa. With corned beef you can have a thin stock, clear; but with croquettes have a rich, substantial bean soup or split pea purée, and have solid vegetables with the meat and a good dessert. All those things may be cheap and not bring up your bills at all, and still you can keep down that dreadful item we housekeepers all must struggle with,—meat."
"And do you have fish on Fridays?"
"Yes, I have fish occasionally, for a change, but I am careful to buy that which has little waste. Large, whole fishes for baking are expensive, for the head and tail have to come off, you see. I get codfish steaks or sometimes a little halibut; neither of those has any waste at all. Or, if there were a river near by, or a lake, I should find out what they caught there and buy that. One day I have the fish as it comes from market, baked or fried, or otherwise prepared; the next day I have the remains scalloped with crumbs and baked. Sometimes I have them in cream sauce, baked in the same way. Once in awhile I get a can of salmon in the place of fresh fish and use it in exactly the same way; and when the exchequer gets very low indeed, I take salt codfish and freshen it and creamand bake it, and invariably Dick compliments me on the extremely good halibut I have!"
"Absurd! But to go on: tell me about the vegetables and salads and desserts that you have."
"I can't do it all at once, my dear; you are so energetic! We will take a special lesson on each of those important things as we come to them. Just now I am laying down principles, you see, and I was speaking of courses at dinner when you diverted me with your questions, just as a pupil when she is not prepared does to a teacher. But perhaps you have my idea, and I can stop here."
"Yes, I think I understand. Have a heavy soup when you have a light course to follow; have a light soup with a heavy meat; have vegetables with the meat and dessert last; is that all?"
"Often I have meat and vegetables first and then salad next; always in summer, I think. It is the best way in hot weather. But have three courses,—that is the economic point I am striving for,—and have coffee last, if you can. Men love coffee for dinner, and if it is black and only a little is taken, it is considered a digestive; and, like other things, it helps out."
"Think of the dishes you are piling up for me to wash in the morning, Mary!"
"Not at all. Only a poor cook ever has piles of dishes to wash up. Wash up all your cooking utensilsas you go along. When you have finished with anything, even a bowl or spoon, take it to the sink, wash, wipe, and put it away; it takes no more steps to do it then than it will later. After dinner at night there should be only the few dishes actually in use on the table; if, possibly, you cannot manage to wash up your broiler or frying-pan because you use them at the last minute, and also because they are too greasy to handle in your nice gown, put these in a special dish-pan all by themselves, with hot water and washing-powder, and stand this out of the way till morning; so much is allowable."
"Is that all for to-day?" Dolly inquired, seeing her sister preparing to do some cooking.
"Yes, that is all, and though you may not think it amounts to much, you will see more in the lesson when you come to keep house than you do now. If you always are neat and look attractive, if you always serve a delightful course dinner for a minimum sum, and have a pretty table, you will be far on your way toward being the perfect housewife."
"I wish I were at the end now," murmured Dolly.
"Then you would lose half the fun of life, my dear. The interest of your studies grows the farther you get along, as I have told you before. Long before you know it all you will be sighing for more worlds to conquer."Dolly looked unconvinced, but her sister laughed at her sober face.
"Mark my words, before you are a finished housekeeper you will love your work!"
"When I came to look over what you said about soups and meats the other day," Dolly complained at the next lesson, "I found it was all glittering generalities. I didn't have a thing written down under soups but 'beans' and 'split peas,' and as to meats, it was mostly don'ts or left-overs. Now, before you go off on anything else, suppose you tell me a lot more about these things."
"So I will. Perhaps I did generalize a bit, but I do not always realize that you do not know how to use a cook-book yet; if you did you could look up all these things for yourself.
"To begin with soups, then, like 'all Gaul,' they are divided into three parts.' There are soups made with vegetables and water and nothing else; soups made with a foundation of meat and bones; and milk-and-vegetable soups. The first kind is the cheapest, and we will start there.
"There are any number of good things to make these soups of, principally beans,—black, white,red, and Lima beans, all dried. You must soak them, cook them slowly in another water, season well with a slice of onion, salt, and pepper, and put them, when they are soft and pulpy, through the sieve. What is called a purée sieve is the best, because it is made in such a way that it presses the vegetables through itself. Then you must thicken the soup with a little bit of butter melted and rubbed with flour; this is not because it is not thickened with the vegetables already, but because the water will separate from the rest if no extra thickening is used. You can have the soup rather thin to make it just right after it is thickened.
"Black bean soup is the best kind; this really needs a bone of some sort cooked with it, a ham bone if you have it. Then it takes lots of seasoning, a pinch of mustard, a thin slice or two of lemon, and last a little chopped hard-boiled egg on top at serving; but it pays for the slight trouble of making it because it is so good; have it often in winter. White bean soups also need a good deal of seasoning, and a bone is good in them, but not really necessary. Left-over baked beans make a good brown soup, and dried Lima beans are excellent; alternate these, and make each one by rule, for each has some little touch of seasoning which makes it have a taste of its own. Any cook-book will tell you how, becauseall of them are so simple to put together. Besides these there is one more thick soup, split pea purée, which you must have too. You can buy the peas in packages, but you can also get them in bulk, and that is the cheaper way. You soak and cook them exactly as you do the beans, and serve them with croutons on top; croutons are tiny squares of bread browned in the oven,—not fried in fat, as some people make them; those are very greasy.
"You can also make purées of any fresh vegetable, carrots, or garden peas, or a mixture of several kinds of vegetables; cook them with onion and salt and pepper and bits of celery or parsley, and put them through the sieve and thicken them. All of them are improved by adding a little milk, but they will do as they are if you have none to spare."
"Do you put a bone in purées?"
"If I happen to have one I do, but not otherwise; I never buy a bone for such a soup. Remember that these thick soups go with the dinners with the light meat course, because they are so substantial. Now we will go on to the next kind.
"The stock soups are made with water, bones, meat, and vegetables. Some housekeepers keep a stock pot on the back of the range and put in it any odds and ends they happen to have, adding more water and seasoning from time to time. When they want asoup, they pour off enough of the stock, strain and clarify it, and either use it as it is or put in something like tomato or potato. This is all very well if you have a range which goes day and night, and if you are careful to completely empty the pot twice a week in winter and three times a week in summer and scrub it out thoroughly and start an entirely fresh lot of bones and meat; otherwise the whole will have a sour taste. I think a better way is to start a soup on the fire and cook it all night in the tireless stove; start it over again in the morning, and cook it half a day more, and then cool and use it."
"Do you mean you pour off the soup, and it is all right just as it is?"
"No, indeed; you first put what bones and meat and vegetables you have in cold water and slowly bring them to the boiling point and skim well. Then you must simmer and simmer on the stove or in the tireless box. When it is done you cool it, take off the white cake of fat on top and save it for frying purposes; heat the soup again and clarify it by stirring in a washed and broken up egg-shell and a little of the white. When this has boiled with the soup for two minutes, the whole will clear. Then you strain it and divide it; half you can have one night with tapioca or barley or minced vegetables, and the other half another night with perhaps tomato in it."
"Do you buy bones and things for stock soup?"
"No, because I use what I have. I don't think it is necessary to buy things for it; but one thing I do; I keep a little kitchen bouquet in the house. It comes in a small bottle on purpose, and it flavors the soup and at the same time colors it brown; that is really necessary, making soup out of odd things, for too often it has little color.
"Milk soups come next, and those are always nice; cream of celery or cream of corn are among the best things we can have. Unfortunately, if you have to buy your milk, they are rather expensive; however, I will tell you how to make them in case you have an extra pint to use up at any time. You take about a cupful of any vegetable and cook it in a pint of water till it is pulpy, adding a little onion, salt, and pepper; then you put it through the sieve, and add a pint of milk, or, rather, add as much milk as you have water, for often you can use only half a pint of each. Then you thicken it slightly, cook it up once, strain, and serve. You can use left-overs of any sort for this,—the outer leaves of lettuce, a little spinach, a few cooked beets, or minced carrot, or a mixture of any different thing you happen to have in the refrigerator. I often make this soup in the morning and just heat it up for dinner, to save time; or, I get the vegetables ready and add the milkat night. Now that is the end of the soup lesson; it is too easy to spend more time over."
"But I can think of ever and ever so many more soups you have not so much as mentioned," said Dolly, indignant at having her thirst for information treated in this summary manner. "You have not spoken of oyster soup or clam chowder, or tomato bisque, or potato soup, or—"
Mary put her hands over her ears. "I won't listen," she said. "I am not compiling a cook-book, as I keep on telling you over and over. I am only laying down general instructions, and after you get those fixed in your mind you can go on by yourself and have no trouble at all. I am in such a hurry to get on to meats, to tell the truth, that I feel like skipping everything to get to that, because to my mind it is the most important of all the subjects we have to learn about. It is where most housekeepers come to grief, if they do. I consider that a girl who wants to really live on a little cannot know too much about meat; she must simply have the whole subject at her finger-ends.
"Remember what I told you in your last lesson, that you cannot have regular dinner meat at all, but instead must have plain and cheap dishes of all sorts and kinds. Now we will begin with beef, because that is really our staple; it is good and nourishingand has no waste about it. Also it does not vary much in price in the different seasons of the year; it is a plain, substantial, dependable sort of meat.
"Though we cannot have regular roasting-roasts, we may have pot-roasts. To make those you buy a sort of square piece from the round. Do not let the butcher persuade you to get a long, thin piece; insist on a chunk. Sear this all over by pressing it down in a hot frying-pan, first on one side and then on the other; this makes a covering that keeps in the juices. Then simmer it a long, long time in a deep covered dish; a casserole, or a crock, or some such thing. When it is half-done put in salt and pepper, chopped onions, and plenty of finely minced vegetables, and keep on cooking till it is tender and the juice is pretty well absorbed. You can cook it in the tireless stove all day, or keep it shut up in the oven of the range, or let it cook slowly on the back of it; but it must cook very slowly and a long, long time. This is all good solid meat, and a four-pound piece will easily make three meals, with perhaps something over for croquettes.
"Beef stew is just this same sort of thing; beef cut in finger lengths, and cooked with vegetables till very soft. Serve that with the gravy thickened. Chopped beef you can have in a dozen ways. Buy cheap beef and put it through your own meat-chopper,to be quite sure it is perfectly clean. Sometimes I get three pounds at once, and make up two pounds into beef loaf, mixing it with a cup of bread crumbs, an egg, salt, and pepper, and a little bit of salt pork. I put it in a bread tin and bake it two hours, basting it well with melted butter and water mixed, and serve it hot, with either a brown gravy or a tomato sauce. That is a dish good enough for a king. For the second dinner you slice what is left, and heat this in the gravy or tomato; or, have brown gravy with the loaf and thick tomato with the slices.
"The other pound I make into a steak. Now real porter-house steak is far too costly for you and me, but I recommend this substitute; you will be surprised to see how exactly it looks like a porter-house and how good it tastes. Copy the shape and size of the real thing, and flatten out the chopped meat and make it into a long piece, larger at one end than the other. Have the butcher give you some strips of suet and press one down through the middle, to represent the bone; put the other one all around the steak to look like the edge of fat. Then put this into a hot, dry frying-pan and cook it, turning it only once and dusting with salt and pepper as you do so. Do not overcook it, as it should be pink inside. Take it up on a hot platter, put a little butter on top and parsley around the edge, and, behold, a perfectly gorgeous porter-house!
"When I am going to make a beef loaf, and do not intend to have this steak, however, I get only two pounds and a half of the meat, and the extra half-pound I make up into little balls and fry. At the same time I fry thick rounds of banana and put one on each ball when I take them up; this is a very good combination. Or, Dolly, if you will never betray me, I will tell you a horrid secret. Twice a year, when the equinoctial storm rages and I am positively certain no one can go out or come in that evening, I make up a plain little steak without suet of the extra half-pound, and all around the edge I put—fried onions!"
"I don't wonder you said it was a horrid secret. I don't think I shall ever sink to that low level; fried onions are not romantic."
"Still, put it down, equinoctial and all, my dear, for Fred probably will approve the dish in spite of your prejudice. And now one thing more about steak: did you ever hear of a flank steak?"
"Never in my life."
"That is the answer most women would make to the question, I fancy; yet, strange to say, many epicures think this one of the best dishes of beef there is. You get the butcher to cut you one, and hang it till it is tender. Then broil it, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dot with butter mixed with chopped parsley; if you have any doubts about its beingtender, score it all over with a sharp knife and lay it in a little oil and vinegar mixed for half an hour or more before you cook it. You will really find it a delicious piece of meat, and you will have enough over for a second dinner, at least."
"Do you ever have corned beef?"
"Once in awhile. When we have it, I cook it till it is very tender and serve it as it is the first night; then I put it back in the water it was cooked in, to keep it from drying out, and the second time I have it I cut it up in even cubes and cream them and put them in a baking-dish with crumbs and butter on top, and brown it in the oven. It is difficult to use up corned beef, for it is not good sliced and warmed over, as most meats are. Sometimes we have it cold, with a hot soup and vegetables; or I have a dish of hash put in a mould and baked. I turn this out and surround it with a ring of minced carrots and turnips; that does very well indeed. The stock I make into bean soup.
"Veal I find a most useful meat, for there is so little waste about it, like beef. When I have a roast I get the breast and stuff it and it is just as good as the higher priced roasts. I get the cheap cut from the leg too, and have a stew with dumplings in it, or a meat pie; if I have any over I sometimes mix it with egg, gravy, and crumbs and make a loaf of it.Or I mince it, add chopped hard-boiled eggs, and serve it that way. Then there is veal stew cooked with tomatoes; to make that, cut up the meat, add a slice of onion and a small cup of tomato, with a tablespoonful of rice or barley, and simmer them all till they are almost solid. This is very nourishing and good. Veal cutlet is expensive, but half a pound goes a long way if you have it cut in small bits and pound them out, and bread and fry them.
"Then there is veal loaf; that is a delightful dish. Get the cheapest veal you can buy and chop it; add a little chopped salt pork, bread crumbs, seasoning, some celery if you have any, or chopped nuts, and bake it as you did the beef loaf; that will make at least two dinners. In summer you can have that for dinner, cold.
"And also for summer, do not forget to have veal and ham pie. You get about a pound of veal, a slice of ham, and a veal knuckle bone, and simmer them all together till the meat drops apart; put this in layers in a deep baking-dish, and add seasoning. Boil down the stock to a cupful, strain it, add a level teaspoonful of gelatine dissolved in cold water, and pour it all over the meat; put on a thin crust and bake it. Set it away to get ice-cold, and you will have a pie with the meat set in a delicious aspic jelly."
"Wasn't that the 'Weal and hammer' of the Boffins?"
"It was indeed, and worthy of immortalization, too. And now as to a second dinner off one of these firsts. One of the perfectly improper dinner dishes you will want to have is croquettes. You can make them of any sort of meat, but they are particularly nice of veal. Learn to make good croquettes, Dolly. So few amateur cooks can do it, and it is the easiest thing in the world to do if only you will remember a few simple things."
"I'll write the rule down; I love croquettes."
"Chop your meat evenly, to begin with; then make the white sauce with double the usual quantity of flour. Instead of using one cup of milk, one tablespoonful of butter, and one of flour, you must take two of flour; that is the first thing to emphasize. You mix this with the meat and seasoning and cook it till it is a smooth paste; spread it out thickly in a platter and let it get perfectly cold before you take another step. I leave mine an hour, at the very least. Then cut it up into small pieces and roll them under your hand and square the ends; dip each one in finely sifted bread crumbs—have them well sifted, Dolly. Next dip in half-beaten egg yolk, then in crumbs again, and then dry them thoroughly before you go any farther. I usually make the paste afterbreakfast and set it away, bread the croquettes after lunch and set them away again. Then just before dinner I fry them, two at a time, in the wire basket in deep fat. I keep them in only enough to brown the crumbs; then I put them in the oven on paper to drain, leaving the door open. That way you make delicious croquettes, pale golden brown outside and creamy inside and with a soup—"
"A good thick purée," interrupted Dolly.
"Yes, and vegetables, you will have a substantial meal.
"Now for pork. I do hope you are going to see that you get that from a reliable man, and have it once in awhile, especially in winter, for it is to my mind neither indigestible nor unwholesome for a change, and it is such an inexpensive meat that it saves you ever so much. You can see for yourself that two pork chops, with all the other things you are to have for dinner, will be plenty of meat for two people, and so cheap! Pork tenderloins I think are the greatest economy. Try getting two of them and opening them lengthwise, filling them with bread-crumb stuffing, and roasting them with nice brown gravy; you will be perfectly surprised to see how good they are. There will be enough meat left over for a second dinner, either croquettes or scallop or something else. And there is this other way of cookingthem: tell the butcher to French them for you; that is, to cut them into rounds and pound each one out into a little cake. Cook these in the frying-pan till they are a pale brown; arrange them on a hot platter, and put an edge of mashed potato around. One good-sized tenderloin will make a dinner.
"As to mutton, you can get what are called steaks of that; really they are chops from the top of the leg, round, with a bone in the middle. Those you can simmer a little, as they are inclined to be tough, and then fry them; or broil them and have peas with them. And there is mutton stew, and scrag of mutton—a part of the neck,—and minced mutton made up into collops with Worcestershire sauce, and mutton stewed with barley into a thick Scotch broth and served like a stew; all those are cheap. As to roasts, once in a long time you can get a small leg of mutton and parboil it, to save roasting it all the time in the oven, and so shrinking it more or less. Brown it at the last, however, and serve it with peas and mint jelly. For the second dinner there will be plenty to slice with the gravy, and enough still to offer again, perhaps disguised as a curry. Of course the stock in which the meat was boiled must make a soup. Tomatoes would go well with mutton, and after the bone was free, that could go in bean soup. As to lamb, I spoke of having stew of that, the cheap parts suchas the neck, of course; and occasionally the forequarter for parties. We will experiment with that later on, so I am going to skip it now."
"Yes, do; I want to talk about chicken. Are we never, never to have that? I think you are dreadfully severe."
Mary smiled. "Well, as a concession, I will say that you can have it once in a long, long time, provided you conscientiously make up beforehand for the extravagance by going in for a regular diet of cheap things. When you do indulge, buy a large fowl, because that goes farther for the price. Stew it till it is tender, and serve it in sections. Cut the breast in four pieces, and lay two away; cut the second joints lengthwise, take out the bone and lay half the meat away with the breast. Cook some boiled rice, to put around your platter; have plenty of gravy, and the first four pieces will do very well for two people. For the second dinner, brown the corresponding four pieces, and serve these with sweet potatoes. The third night, open the drumsticks, take out the bones, fill the centres with stuffing, and brown these. Serve them on toast, like birds; you might well pretend that is what they are, too. You will still have the bits on the wings, neck and back for a nice luncheon dish or for croquettes; and the liver, gizzard, and heart should go into an omelette. After all, a fowl is nottoo expensive for two people provided they will make three meals of it; not too expensive for an occasional change, that is. It would be too much for daily consumption."
"It would do provided the fowl was not too tough," corrected Dolly.
"It is tolerably sure to be tough, but long cooking corrects that. Try this sometimes: instead of simmering it, cut it up and fry each piece a little; as you do so, put them in a kettle and add a very little water. When all are in see that the water just covers them; put a cover on and put this away in the tireless stove, or simmer it very slowly on the back of the range for four or five hours. It will come out brown and tender."
"And put all left-over gravy and bones in the stock pot," Dolly muttered to herself as she wrote this down. "Now, before I forget it, tell me why the drumsticks are to be served 'on toast?' I see I have that expression down over and over. Are you so awfully fond of toast as all that?"
"Toast, my dear child, is the way of making a small dish larger. When things are scanty it conceals the fact as nothing else does. Don't you know how often the cook-books say, 'serve with sippets of toast?'"
"Now you mention it, I do seem to recall the phrase, though I thought it said 'snippets' of toast. I supposed they were a sort of garnish, like parsley."
"They are a garnish, but at the same time they are one of the small economies of cooking. They get rid of bits of bread, and at the same time give an air to a dish while they help eke it out.
"And now for the left-overs of meat. I have spoken of some of those as we have gone along, but there are heaps and heaps more. If you have a good deal of meat left over you can have English rissoles, for one thing; generally you make them out of beef, but not necessarily. You chop the meat, mix it with gravy and a raw egg to bind it, add a few crumbs and some seasoning, and roll the whole into balls. Dip each one in flour and fry it in a wire basket. Beef olives are thin slices of beef with a spoonful of crumbs put on each slice, and these rolled over once and pinned in place with a tiny wooden skewer—in other words, a wooden toothpick. Any other meat can be used in the same way. Mutton can be served a la marquise; that is, mince it, mix it with boiled rice and curry-powder and a tiny bit of onion, and a raw egg to bind it all; make into balls and fry them. Sliced mutton is nice dipped in French dressing and broiled. Cottage loaf is good, especially for an extra busy day. For that, line a dish with mashed potato, put the minced and seasoned meat in the centre and cover with more potato; bake this and turn out in a mould. Tomato sauce goes well with this dish by way of gravy. Baked hash is justminced meat mixed with gravy, pressed into a mould and baked in the oven till it will turn out.
"When you have only a little meat left over and can make none of these dishes, try soufflé; I have never found anything so good to help out. You chop the meat till you have a cupful; or, if there is less, measure everything else in the same proportion. With a cupful take as much white sauce, a little minced onion and parsley, salt and pepper, and put it all on the fire with two beaten egg yolks. Cook this three minutes; take it off and cool it, and fold in the stiffly beaten whites. Put it in a buttered baking-dish and bake it half an hour and serve at once while it is nice and puffy.
"Besides this have croquettes, and if you are short of meat for those, put in a little boiled rice. And when your meat gives out altogether, try this cheap and very nice Mexican dish: put in a saucepan a quarter of a pound of dried beef cut up rather small, with a cup of tomato and a quarter of a cup of rice, a little onion and seasoning; cook till the rice is soft. The rest of the beef in the box, if you buy it that way, you can broil; it is like delicate ham.
"I should think all these things ought to make it easy for you to at least begin to manage; afterwards you can go on and have anything more you can find to make that is good and cheap."
"I think somebody once told me that twice-cooked food was not wholesome; do you really believe it is a good idea to have warmed-over things for dinners?"
"Think of the French once more! They have the greatest number of made dishes in the world and they never have dyspepsia. And then you are to have warmed-over things only every other night, at the worst, and not always then, by any means, and I am sure you will thrive on them."
"One thing more; do you believe it pays to spend so much time and thought and all that on doing over things? Don't you think you might as well buy fresh ones as to put so much strength in these?"
"My dear girl, if you are going to save your money you must expend your time and ingenuity in doing so. I don't believe in wasting strength, but I do believe in using it wisely in order to save buying unnecessarily. But you will learn that as you go on. Now do you think I have told you enough about meat to enable you to keep the wolf from the door?"
"I do, indeed; I only hope Fred will consent to eat these things. If he finds out he is dining on left-overs and dried beef and scrags of mutton, I am afraid he will think me a pretty poor sort of housekeeper."
"Do you suppose any mere man is going to know that he is eating cheap meat unless you actually tellhim so in plain words? Not at all; he will eat all these delicacies and declare that they are far better than roasts of beef and spring lamb, and wonder how you can possibly afford to have such good things on your little housekeeping income. You will simply be covered with glory, and he will never know how you are deceiving him for his own good."
"I think it is going to be dreadfully trying to live on an allowance, anyway. It will be just like being shipwrecked on a raft, and having exactly so much hardtack and so many ounces of water doled out to you each day. If you eat any of your to-morrow's provisions you won't be alive when a ship sights you at last. In other words, you will never get your salary raised if you don't live within what you have now."
"You won't deserve to have it raised if you can't live within what you have now; so much is sure. But you won't have any trouble. Remember to keep within your week's allowance, not your daily one; there's comfort in that for you. You can see that one day you may buy two days' food at once, and so spend part or all of the dollar that properly belongs to to-morrow; but the end of the week straightens that out comfortably, and if that account comes out all right you cannot run over the whole."
"I really believe we had better be vegetarians and live on pea soup and lentils and peanuts and suchthings. Being both cheap and filling, what more could one ask?"
"Well, vegetarians have taught us all a great deal. I think, however, that men who have been brought up to have meat at least once a day do not take kindly to a diet which cuts it out altogether. But I am sure they are far better off without too much meat, and if they can be made to think they are getting as much as usual when really they are getting only half as much, that is a distinct gain. Always remember what I told you, that they do not inquire too closely exactly what they are getting to eat if only it is good; that is something to count among your mercies."
"Have you any idea what you spend for meat a day?"
"Yes; we have it for dinner only, and, as I explained, I buy enough one day for at least two dinners. Dividing the two or possibly three pounds up in that way, of course it makes the daily total absurdly small; I suppose it averages only about twenty cents,—probably less."
"That does seem impossible, except as I review the baked hash and other dinner meats you mentioned. And with this enormous expense you pay for vegetables, milk, eggs, butter, and all the rest, and yet put pennies in the kitchen bank?"
"Of course. I buy meat one day, vegetables thenext, flour the third, and so on; that is the explanation."
"Well, I see that it is not quite as impossible as one would think at first sight, anyway."
"You are only in the first stages of housekeeping yet, so wait awhile, my dear, before you make up your mind one way or the other. Now get your hat and we will go down-town and buy the dinner for to-night,—pot-roast, I think, for one thing."
"Pot-roast to-night; to-morrow the remains of yesterday's mutton; the next day the beef again,—in soufflé, possibly, provided Dick comes home to-night with a good appetite, in which case little will be left."
"Don't forget the soup; we have a vegetable one to-night."
"Then there may possibly be enough beef left for rissoles next time."
"Good girl," said Mary, approvingly, "you are learning, and deserve a reward, and, as George Eliot says 'the reward for work well done is the ability to do more work,' we will pick out a particularly difficult lesson on something for to-morrow," and she laughed over the ungrateful face Dolly made as she went for her marketing hat.
"After soup and meat I suppose we have dessert," said Dolly, as she hung up her dish-washing apron.
"No, indeed; after soup we have vegetables with the meat, and sometimes salad next, before we come to the dessert. I think those things are difficult to manage, too, especially the vegetables; so sharpen up your wits and let us finish up dinners as soon as possible. I seem to see so much ahead all the time that I am in a constant hurry; there are breakfasts and luncheons, preserves, and entertaining, not to mention about forty more things, each one more interesting than the last. So hurry!"
"Begin," said Dolly, finding her pencil; "I'm all attention."
"Suppose we take up the subject of potatoes, then, because those come oftenest on the table. Potatoes are one of the extravagances of the housekeeper, strange as it may seem at first sight. To have them twice a day, to peel them carelessly and throw away about a quarter of each potato, and to buy them bythe small basketful in the first place, are all distinctly wasteful. If you live where you can do it, Dolly, always buy them in good measure, a half-barrel at a time, let us say, when you find they are rather cheap, as they are in the fall; then toward the end of winter, when they grow dearer all the time, do not have them right along. I would not have them for luncheon at all, if I were you; I never have them then; and at night have boiled rice twice a week with the meat, choosing the time by the kind you have, for some things are better with rice than others."
"Chicken goes well with it."
"Yes, and lamb stew, and in general meats with gravy. Then once a week have macaroni in place of potatoes, and vary the way you cook it; at one time have cheese and the next time tomatoes. You can put in about a quarter of a can of those, and use the rest in other ways; perhaps put a second quarter of the can into a beef stew and still have a half-can for one night's vegetable. Then remember when you are cooking potatoes that it is a time-saving plan to boil enough for two meals, or even more. You can mash the first supply, because they must be freshly cooked for that; but make more than you need, and the second time you can make potato-cakes of the left-overs of those; the third time you can cream what are still plain boiled. By the way, sometimescut or chop these potatoes quite fine, and after creaming them put crumbs on top and bake them; that is a good change. Of course you can scallop the second supply, too, or chop and brown them, or serve in any one of a dozen ways; look those things all up, so you will not get into a rut. So many women seem to know only two ways of cooking potatoes, for they always serve them either boiled or mashed. And, Dolly, when you have a maid to peel your potatoes for you, do try and teach her to cut the peel thin; she will possess an inveterate determination to cut it thick, and it will probably be a lifelong battle to teach her to do your way, but your duty will be to persevere just the same. If she will not learn, at least you can have her boil the potatoes whole first and scrape off the peel afterwards; that will save them in spite of her.
"As to the other vegetables, I think we ought to add another dinner rule to those I laid down when we were on that subject, and that is this: Buy only the vegetables that are in season. You know that all winter long city people can have spinach and string-beans and eggplant and such things, because they come from the South, and also because many of them can be kept in cold storage,—eggplant for one. But these are always expensive. You must resolutely turn your back on them when you market; you cannot have them at all."
"We have to have canned things, I suppose," said Dolly, writing down the statement immediately, with conscious pride in her knowledge.
"Canned! Not at all. Canned vegetables are far too costly for you; like everything else, they have risen in price. You must use them very carefully indeed, and for every-day use you must depend on old-fashioned winter things, parsnips and turnips and beets and onions; really, if you cook them in nice new ways they are very good, too, and you will not mind at all."
"I don't believe there are any new ways."
"Indeed there are; I can't stop to tell you many of them, but here are just a few ideas. Cook parsnips a long time, season and slice them, and put them in the double boiler with a little butter and let them smother; brown them a little at the end in the frying-pan, and you will find them really delicious. Or, cook them soft, add salt and pepper, and make them into little cakes and fry them brown. Never boil, slice and fry them, as we once did; they are frightfully indigestible so.
"Turnips you can steam, dice and cream alone, or better, mix them with a few peas and diced carrots and serve them around meat. You can get a pint or so of dried peas and soak them up as you need them, to avoid opening a can each time.
"A delightful company way of serving turnips is this: boil or steam them whole and scrape them; scoop out the tops till you have a little white cup of each one, and cut a slice from the bottom, to make it stand evenly; put butter, salt, and pepper in each and fill with drained and seasoned canned peas. You can't think how pretty they are; you can have those with mutton or lamb. The inside bits you mix with the carrots the next night, as I told you.
"Speaking of carrots, they are considered one of the most wholesome of vegetables, because they are full of iron; so have them often. Just boil them, cut them up and cream them, or drain them dry and put a little butter on them if you are short of milk; they are especially good with Hamburg steak or beef in any shape.
"Beets you boil, scrape and dice and put in a very little white sauce; any left over make a good milk soup the second night. Or, for company you fix them exactly as you did the turnips; make them into cups and fill them with peas. I am not sure which is the prettier dish.
"Onions you have once in awhile for a change; they are certainly good for you, and they need not be odoriferous. Cut them up and simmer them in just enough water to cover them, adding a bit of soda. Drain them,—and, by the way, do not 'throw awaythe water,' as cook-books say, but save it for soup; put the onions in a baking-dish with white sauce and crumbs and bake them. I think with a dinner ending with black coffee no one will suspect you of having eaten them. If ever you find any especially large onions in market, or can pick out several from the quart of the ordinary kind, boil these whole, and when they are soft take out the middle part and fill them with bread crumbs and bake them, basting them occasionally.
"Salsify or oyster-plant is really an extremely good vegetable if only it is well cooked, which it isn't, as a general thing. Try this way: simmer it till it is very tender indeed; take it up and drain it and scrape it well. Then cut off the little end and also the top, so that what is left is like a croquette in shape; of course the rest can go in soup, so it will not be lost. Dip each piece in crumbs, then in egg, then in crumbs, exactly as you do croquettes, and let them dry; fry in deep fat in a wire basket, and you will be astonished to see what a nice new dish you have.
"As to cabbage, there you have a real treasure. If every woman could only cook it in the hygienic way she would find she had one of the greatest helps in winter. It is so cheap, so good, and so easily digested when it is right that it is a pity every one does not know how to do it. You cut the cabbageup in quarters and take out the core; the four pieces you put in a pot of hard-boiling water, dropping in one at a time gently, so as not to stop the boiling. Then put in a small plate or anything to keep it under water, a piece of soda as large as the end of your little finger, and some salt, and boil as hard as you can for twenty-five minutes, being careful to keep the pot uncovered."
"Think of the horrid odor, Mary! It would just fill the house."
"That is exactly what it would not do, my dear. If you cover the pot, the cabbage will make itself known at once, but if you boil it hard and keep it uncovered, it will not; if you don't believe me, try for yourself. At the end of the time take it up and press the water out in the colander and cut it up. Put it in a hot dish and cover with white sauce; and then bless your kind sister who taught you how to make one of the best things you ever ate.
"Now the canned things come next. There, as I said, you must economize, and the best way to do that aside from buying few of them, is to always make two meals of each canful. That is not difficult to do with a small family. For instance, when you have tomatoes, serve half stewed down with bits of toast in them; the next time scallop what is left with crumbs, to help out. Canned corn you also divide, havingtwo-thirds as it is, drained and freshly creamed, of course, with lots of seasoning; and the next night you have the left-over third in corn fritters. By the way, Dolly, try the grated corn; it is better than the other kind, and you can have another change by sometimes serving the first part in a baked corn custard. If you use the ordinary kind, you will also make one can go farther by adding some beans and serving it as succotash.
"Canned peas are one of the most useful things for an emergency, for they can be combined with so many other things; with croquettes they are delicious, and with sliced meat. Just reheat the meat and have a circle of creamed peas around it on the platter. And with salmon, too, they are invaluable. However, be careful in buying them, for they are not cheap, and remember to buy small American peas, not French ones, even for company. Canned string-beans are good for some things, but you do not need them as a vegetable; I'll come to those later on. Asparagus is out of court entirely, for it's too expensive for us.
"As to dried things, by all means invest in dried beans of all kinds; most of them you will use for soups, but Lima beans are excellent as a vegetable. Soak them with a bit of soda, to bring back their color, and then season well. I believe always in adding a bit of onion to the water I soak them in, for it bringsout the flavor; and then add white sauce or butter, as usual. I suppose few people ever bake Lima beans, but they are very good, especially for a change. In winter, Dolly, have plenty of baked beans for luncheon, the ordinary kind and the Limas, and once in awhile pretend to live in Boston and have a big dish of nice crisply browned beans, with a bit of pork in them, for Saturday night's dinner, in place of meat."
"All right, I will. But if you have come to a stopping-place, may I speak? Tell me this: are we never to have any green things, celery or lettuce, for instance?"
"Celery you must watch for, and when you find it is cheap, as sometimes you may,—for small bunches often look rusty and go for a little when they are still useful,—then buy some. Open it and take out the best parts for dinner as they are; scrape the outside pieces and cut them up; stew them and bake in a white sauce. You can put a little grated cheese over the top with the crumbs if you choose; it makes a good dish that way. And as to lettuce, that turns me to salads.
"You know how strongly I believe in having a nice fresh green salad, with a light dressing of oil, for dinner every single day; it is a real hardship that people who must live on a little cannot have it right along, but they cannot. Once in awhile in winteryou will find what grocers call 'seconds' in market; that is, lettuce which has had its outer leaves pulled off because they are withered. Those little round heads sell for a small sum, often five cents or less; one of them is plenty for two people, so buy whenever you can. You can omit the soup that night; begin with a heavy meat, such as pot-roast or corned beef, have the salad next, and then dessert. Or, here is another way I like still better: have the soup and meat and vegetables as usual, with the salad next, served with crackers and cheese, and have no dessert at all, simply coffee last. We often do that way.
"Besides lettuce, however, you can frequently find watercress in market for five cents a head, and often chicory; both those are good for dinner salads. And shredded cabbage mixed with nuts is good, and of course celery. As to the oil, there is an economy you must practise. Never buy bottled oil; it is frightfully dear and too often it is not fresh. Besides, the so-called quart bottles hold only a pint by actual measurement. Always go to an Italian grocery and get the oil that comes in tins, at about sixty cents a real quart; that is pure and fresh and does not turn rancid, no matter how long you keep it, because it is not exposed to the light. One tin will last a long time, so it is not expensive. Anyway, you buy that out of the box on the mantel, as it is a staple."
"So we can have only plain salads, and those occasionally," mourned Dolly. "And I simply dote on grapefruit salad for dinner."
"Watch your market, then. Once in awhile you can buy a grapefruit for about seven cents; get it by all means, and a little head of lettuce, and have it; only remember to make up for your extravagance by having a cheap meat twice over. And sometimes you can have orange salad in the same way; get one or two oranges, cut them in thick slices, and serve with French dressing. You don't need lettuce for that."
"Good! That's an idea that suits me, and I will cheerfully sacrifice dessert to have either kind. Is that the end of salads?"
"Not quite. You can have canned string-beans sometimes, very cold, with French dressing, either as they are or on lettuce. And of course escarole and romaine and anything else you find that is cheap; sometimes in a city market one of them will be. And in the spring you can have nice little dandelion leaves and spinach and garden lettuce, and such things. And in summer—in summer, Dolly, you can simply revel in salads. Then I should dispense with soup for dinner and have one every single day; sometimes twice a day. There's nothing more wholesome in the whole range of eatables, and nothing whichrequires so little preparation. There are a thousand things to have in summer; study them up by all means."
"I suppose you do not have salads with mayonnaise for dinner, or you would speak of salmon and chicken salad and all those things."
"No, those are for luncheon and we will take them up then. I think that is the end of the dinner salads."
"Now for desserts," said Dolly, cheerfully. "Those are the best of all. I really and truly know how to make some of those, too. You remember, Mary, I began to take cooking lessons once, and got in three, all on desserts, and then I went off visiting and never finished the course. But I did learn how to make bomb glacé, and marrons with whipped cream, and a perfectly delicious sort of iced pudding that I know Fred will just love, if only I have not forgotten all about them!"
"Well, suppose we begin with some of the plainer things," laughed her sister; "rice pudding for one."
"Oh, I forgot," Dolly groaned. "Yes, I suppose we must have rice pudding and bread pudding and corn-starch pudding and tapioca pudding in a pleasing round, and when we have completed the circle we begin and have them all over again. I hate them all!"
"You are tolerably certain to have them, at one time or another, but I would not have them in rotation,and I would dress them up so as to change them whenever I could. But before we go into details, let me tell you one important thing: that is, that in making desserts you must be extra careful, for most of them take eggs and butter and sugar and possibly a good many other things that cost money, especially in winter time. You must have simple desserts, made from apples when they are cheap, and rice, and as you suggest, tapioca and corn-starch at times. In summer, of course, you can have fruit, and if you live in the country there are lots of good things to make out of milk and cream, especially cream. But in town, be on your guard. Have the plain things, but disguise them so they will seem new.
"Bread pudding can be varied in ever so many ways. One day you can put raisins in; another you can put in home-made orange peel or orange marmalade; still another, put dates in it or chocolate. A little something different is very nice, and a man will never know that, after all, he is eating bread pudding each time.
"So with corn-starch pudding; you can have infinite variety there. Always make it soft, never stiff, Dolly, look out for that; and one day put in a little chocolate, and another a few chopped nuts with a dash of almond flavoring, and a third mix the milk with as much coffee; or add orange juice orlemon. Always change the flavor, and you will not tire of the basis. I find the best way to serve those things is in glasses, too, not on plates; they go a great deal farther, for one ordinary portion will serve two people easily. Then, too, a plain cold pudding seems nicer and more appetizing served in little glasses or glass cups, so it pays.
"Tapioca is good for a cold night's dinner. Try the instantaneous kind, and you will find it turns out a sort of hot jelly, and very good. In that you can have clear coffee once, and apples or oranges at other times, and any sort of canned fruits you have left over; and as it takes no eggs and no butter, just like corn-starch pudding, it is particularly cheap.
"As to rice pudding, cook one tablespoonful of rice in one pint of milk with one tablespoonful of sugar; put it in a baking-dish and put it in a moderate oven in the morning for an hour or more, and as a crust forms on top, turn it underneath and the bottom part up, and repeat till the whole is soft and creamy and pale brown; then let the top brown. Put in raisins or chopped dates, and eat it very cold, and you will think you have found something deserving a fancy French name, it is so good, and different from plain rice pudding as one usually gets it. Orange marmalade, too, is very nice on cold rice pudding.
"When apples are cheap try apple porcupine. Peeland core and bake the apples, and when they are cold stick them full of strips of blanched almonds; five cents' worth will be enough for six apples. If you serve them covered with a nice glaze of sugar and water syrup made by basting them as they cook, you will not need cream with them, though it is nice, too.
"Junket takes only milk and sugar, but you must dress it up well when you have it. I mean if you have one little pot of preserved ginger in your closet for use at such times, put the junket in glasses to set, and serve with the ginger cut in little cubes on top and a bit of juice with it. One pot of ginger costs only fifteen cents and keeps forever. So I would get it occasionally; or, make some for yourself from the root, in the fall.
"As to pies, in winter I have them rather often, but I make them as the English do, in a baking-dish with an upper crust only. I take a small can of fruit which I have put up on purpose, perhaps blueberries or cherries or plums, and fill the dish; then I add sugar, and a sprinkling of flour, put on the crust and bake it, and serve it almost or quite cold. That is a wholesome dessert and one a man is certain to approve of. Apple tart is very good, too, and of course peach or apricot tart are best of all, if you can get these fruits cheaply, as you sometimes can in September.
"Gelatine things are economical, because with them you do not need butter or eggs. Any sort of cooked fruit, such as prunes or canned fruits, needs only to be set with gelatine in a pretty mould and served with the fruit juice, or cream if you have it. In a city you can't have it often, but luckily people who own cows may; I only hope they appreciate their blessings as they should.
"Then try French pancakes; sometimes you will have griddle cakes for breakfast. Save a little batter and for dinner make four cakes for two people, because two will be called for apiece. While they are hot spread them with jam or jelly, roll them up and cover thickly with mixed sugar and cinnamon.
"Shortcakes in summer are an unfailing delight; have them with strawberries and raspberries and peaches. In winter you can make a rather thin layer of shortcake, split it open while it is warm, spread it with a little butter and sugar, and put jam inside or rich preserves and serve a little boiled custard with it. All these things, you see, take only a short time to make, as well as few costly ingredients. I don't think it good policy for people who are trying to economize to put much time or money on desserts. Indeed, if I could I believe I would always have fruit; but in town it is too expensive, except occasionally. Sometimes I do have baked bananas; those are cheap,certainly, and good, too; and when I find some good and cheap oranges I have two for dessert and possibly save a little elsewhere. One orange sliced with two bananas goes a long way, too."
"And no ices or ice-creams, Mary! Are we never to have those?"
"Of course—I forgot them. In winter I put out a small pail of water at night and freeze it; the next day I make an ice or sherbet from some simple thing, such as part of a can of pineapple, or a lemon or orange, and freeze it. This costs almost nothing at all, especially as I save the salt and dry it for next time. For creams I get the ice in the same way when I can, and either make a mousse and put it in the fireless stove, or make a cheap boiled custard and freeze that, adding a few dried and rolled macaroons to enrich it, or even a few dried crumbs of Boston brown-bread, which, strange to say, look and taste much the same. Of course you must not deliberately buy ingredients for ice-cream except for company, but an ice you can have whenever you choose. Then in summer, if you can get ice cheaply, you can have fruits made into sherbet or frozen as they are. I think frozen peaches are perfectly delicious."
"So they are, and three peaches with sugar enough to sweeten them ought not to cost much, surely, nor would frozen watermelon."
"Speaking of that, reminds me of something I had last summer which was cheap and good, which you might put down. I had some watermelon on hand which had lost its freshness; indeed, it was not fit to put on the table as it was, but my conscience would not let me throw it away. I just chopped it up, sweetened it with a little sugar and water syrup, flavored it with a dash of cooking-sherry, and froze it, and it came out one of the best sherbets I ever ate in my life."
"It does sound good. I'll write that down; and we can have lots of melons for dessert in the autumn, just as they are."
"Yes, indeed; have all the fruit you can when it is cheap. You can serve it in so many ways that you can never tire of it. That suggests something else, too,—nuts. You have no idea, Dolly, how nuts help out in winter. When you have no time to make dessert, or nothing in the house to make it of, try serving nuts and a few raisins with the coffee for a final course, and you will be surprised to see the rapture which Fred will show. Men always like nuts, and if you are careful not to have them after a heavy dinner of corned beef or such things, they are not unwholesome. Of course you must not have many; just a few with the black coffee. Keep them for emergencies, too, and do not have them toooften, or they may pall, which would be a pity, for a dessert of nuts, raisins, and coffee will often cover a multitude of deficiencies in the dinner."
"Good; and I must put down not to have anything made with eggs or butter or cream, so I won't forget your words of wisdom about those."
"Don't put down a 'never,' only a 'seldom,' then. I do have things made with whipped cream sometimes, for a bottle holding a quarter of a pint costs ten or twelve cents, and judiciously used makes two desserts, in part at least, so once in awhile I indulge in it. Half a box of red raspberries, served in two glasses, with a big spoonful of whipped cream on top of each, is ever so good. And just a little cream on a small open shell of pie-crust filled with preserved fruit, makes it what the late Delia used to call 'a stylish dish.' No, don't entirely bar out all expensive ingredients, Dolly; sometimes you can have some of them in homœopathic quantities. A few lady-fingers, split in halves and cut across, laid in two glasses with a spoonful of flavored cream on top, make a good dessert, especially if there is a bit of jam tucked underneath the cream. And after all, the lady-fingers cost only two cents and the cream five or six,—so you see."
"I see," said Dolly. "And eggs, now; may I ever make desserts with them?"
"Certainly, in the spring you can have them ina custard often; and a little sweet omelette made with jam is a delightful finish to a dinner, and it takes only two eggs to make it."
"Then how am I to know what to do? No, don't tell me, for I know myself. I use my common sense."
"Exactly. Keep your eyes and ears open when you go to market, and buy things in season and cheaply, and have whatever you can afford. It would be too ridiculous to have rice puddings when strawberries were cheaper, or corn-starch, when you could have sherbet or some other delicacy. Just 'use your common sense,' and you will be safe. And this finishes Dinners, at last, and with a good motto for your book to head the chapter as well as to close it."